Friday, May 27, 2011

The biggest albatross around the neck of the political Left in the USA is their raging hoplophobia.

What is hoplophobia? Fear of weapons. Why did Colonel Cooper describe this as a phobia? Because it manifestly is a morbid and illogical fear.

Intelligent, well-educated, politically-aware US citizens, who are otherwise given to rational and logical consideration, discard all logic and fly straight to emotion when the subject of weapons is under discussion. Only fear makes people behave like this.

Allow me to cite as an example Michael Shure of The Young Turks, not because he's particularly prominent, but simply because he's a typical representative of the progressive blogosphere. Mr Shure has solid progressive credentials, good political awareness overall, and if he's more of a liberal capitalist than a true Socialist, that's OK, the dialectic tells us that progress comes in small increments.

And yet, when the subject of weapons is on the table, Mr Shure goes from calmly logical to purely emotional. Here are his own words -

"I talk about guns, and I have no idea what I'm talking about, other than that they seem ridiculous to me.""I don't care what the Constitution said"

Both these quotes are from the show Michael guest-hosted on August 18th 2009. And yes, that was almost two years ago, but have the facts of the issue really changed any since then?

The point is that the issue of arms and Second Amendment rights reduces an intelligent, articulate, well-educated progressive to a level of response which, by his own admission, has nothing of logic about it, and nothing of informed opinion. This is the painfully sad part. This is the albatross. This is our Achilles' Heel.

Achilles' Heel because it alienates reasonable men and women who would otherwise be sympathetic to our cause. Achilles' Heel because we sound like hypocritical fools, championing Constitutional Rights in every other instance, but execrating the Second Amendment. Achilles' Heel because it makes us look weak and contemptible in the eyes of our opponents.

Have you ever wondered why the radical Right so openly heaps vitriolic scorn upon the political Left? It is more than the standard nationalist tactic of demonizing an opponent. It is more than the arrogantly obnoxious self-righteousness of religious fundamentalism. It is more than the desperate compensation of the quiveringly insecure.

It is the contempt of those who have weapons for those who do not.

The blunt fact of the matter is that most of the radical Right own guns and know how to use them. Most of the political Left do not own guns, and know less then nothing about them. Less than nothing because they have zero actual first-hand knowledge, and a head full of wildly mistaken ideas foisted upon them by television, movies, and other media.

If you think this disparity is irrelevant, you have obviously not studied history very carefully.

Mao Tse Tung once said -Every Communist must grasp the truth; political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

The modern Chinese government takes an interesting line on the subject of Mao Tse Tung, saying that he was 60% right and 40% wrong. I'll leave you to decide for yourself in which category that statement belongs.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Oh, Mr President, how can you stand to look at yourself in the mirror to shave of a morning?

After giving lip service to the concept of a Palestinian "state" based upon the pre-1967 borders, Obama proceeded to stick his nose right back up between the ass-cheeks of the Zionist Lobby and give them a major rim-job.

Adhering tightly to the Netanyahu government's line, Obama then laid out his vision of a Palestinian "nation" which would be nothing of the sort, any more than the Bantustans created by the Apartheid government of South Africa were nations.

A nation is a sovereign entity, with its own military, and the right to enter into international treaties. Barak Obama's vision of a Palestinian "state" includes neither of these. Consider his own words.

First he said -"As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat"

But then later in the same paragraph he said -"withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state"

Excuse me, Mr President, but since you just said that every state has the right to self-defense, how are the Palestinians supposed to manage that with no military? If a state has the right to self-defense, and the Palestinians are to be "non-militarized", then by your own definition, that is not a state.

The fact that Obama cannot manage to maintain even internal logic and consistency, not even for the duration of a single paragraph, serves to highlight the gross hypocrisy and shameless immorality of US policy toward Israel.

And just in case there was any remaining doubt in anyone's mind about who wears the pants in the US-Israel relationship, the Israelis just approved the construction of nearly 300 more homes in an illegal settlement in the Occupied West Bank. While Netanyahu was visiting Washington DC. Just to make sure we got the "Fuck You" message loud and clear.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

This is the observation of the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, which was the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their land in 1948, in a shameless act of ethnic cleansing by the Zionists.

Sunday's peaceful observation of this anniversary turned into Sunday, Bloody Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire with live ammunition on the unarmed protesters. This, of course, is not the sort of thing you'll see reported on the MSM, which are owned and controlled by rabid supporters of Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians marched to the border crossing at Erez, where the Israelis fired upon them with tanks. One teenager was killed outright, and more than 50 injured, many of them children. It was reported that another man was later murdered by Israeli forces east of Gaza City.

Palestinian refugees in Southern Lebanon marched in peaceful protest to the border crossing at Maroun el Rass. Israeli forces opened fire upon them without warning, murdering 10 people and wounding over 70 more.

Palestinian refugees and their Syrian supporters in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights marched in peaceful protest, and they too were fired upon by the Israelis. Eight people were killed outright, and more than 50 injured.

In the Occupied West Bank, hours of assaults upon peaceful protesters by Israeli forces using live ammo, (as well as rubber bullets and tear gas), left over 100 Palestinians wounded, and one man dead.

In considering these figures, my friends, remember that the medical care available to the Palestinians is very limited, and some of those injured will later die of their wounds, or be crippled for life. Oh, Israel has some fine, modern hospitals, but they only admit Jewish patients. Muslims and Christians are relegated to older, second-rate medical facilities, which are systematically deprived of supplies.

For how much longer will we continue to send Israel $12 Billion a year in aid, which they then use to commit atrocities and crimes against humanity?

We are told we cannot afford $16 Billion to extend UI benefits for the long-term unemployed, six million US citizens who have done nothing wrong, who have worked and paid their taxes and voted all their lives. But we have $12 Billion a year to give away to Israel? Did you know that the amount we have spent in Libya so far would have funded that UI extension 15 times over?

How much longer, my friends? How much longer do we put up with this shit?

Monday, May 16, 2011

Once again, the Israeli Navy has attacked an unarmed aid ship in international waters. This, like the attack on the Mavi Marmara, is an act of piracy, pure and simple.

Details are skimpy at this time, but a vessel of the Egyptian navy was apparently also involved, which shows how much the "peaceful revolution" has really changed things in Egypt. The Egyptian government and military are still Israel's puppets.

As I said, details are still scanty at this time, but the vessel was intercepted and fired upon in international waters, which is the definition of piracy.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Foreign Policy magazine is, for the most part, little more than a conservative propaganda organ. But every now and then, they do publish something well worth looking at.

Such a gem is the new photo essay Once Upon A Time In Egypt, which consists of a few paragraphs of background and nine black and white photographs, taken in Alexandria in 1959.

To quote directly -The late 1950s marked the end of an era in Alexandria that had begun in the late 19th century, when the port -- then the largest on the eastern Mediterranean -- emerged as one of the world's great cosmopolitan cities. Europeans -- Greeks, Italians, Armenians, and Germans -- had gravitated to Alexandria in the mid-19th century during the boom years of the Suez Canal's construction, staying through the British invasion of the port in 1882 and the permissive rule of King Farouk in the 1930s and 1940s. Foreign visitors and Egyptians alike flocked to the city's beaches in the summers, where revealing bathing suits were as ordinary as they would be extraordinary today.

The photographs are like something out of a time machine. The women seem a bit chubby by the standards of today, when the starving refugee look is all the rage, and the swimsuits are very tame, although they were daring at the time.

But remember this is Egypt. The Egypt that was.

And if you read to the end of the introduction, you'll learn that the girl on the far left of the first photograph, Odette Tawil, would 40 years later marry Elie Moreno, the man who took these photographs. Is life not strange?

Monday, May 2, 2011

I'm one of those who believe that Osama bin Laden has been dead for a decade now.

But why the whole big psy-op in the first place? Yes, I've heard about the so-called DNA evidence, and I'm not impressed. It can be faked, like anything else.

This looks to me like a setup, and Peter King's comment about al Qaeda wanting to retaliate as soon as they can sends chills down my spine. Pray to whatever gods you believe in that this is not a setup for another 9/11-style false flag attack.